Kansas City Public Schools regain full accreditation for first time in 30 years

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Round of applause please. It took awhile. But, for the first time in 30 years, Kansas City Public Schools are celebratory owners of full academic accreditation. Low test scores and high dropout rates have crippled the district for decades. Not to mention the revolving door of superintendents. “We know this has been a long road traveled, but this district has arrived,” said KCPS superintendent Dr. Mark Bedellwho made the big announcement Monday during a news conference at Wendell Phillips Elementary.

“We also know we have a lot of work to do.”

KCPS Supt. Mark Bedell all smiles as he announces 70% APR from state – that's within full accreditation range. pic.twitter.com/ZwlJgIrCjM

Students and teachers can gloat over a huge improvement on their annual academic progress report, a score that’s gone from 22 to 98 percent. “We have proven, that when we come together, regardless of whom our superintendent is, this school system can be successful.” said parent Jameka Kendrix.

Now the hard part. Bedell expects to win back the hundreds of students and families who have hopped the fence for greener academic pastures. It’s a process. But, so far, more than 400 families have contacted the district to express interest. KCPS currently serves 18,000 students.

“We have been transparent for our opportunities for improvement,”Dr. Bedell said. “That will continue to be the case as we strive to build the high-quality school system our students deserve.”

18 comments

It doesn’t work to send all poor children to one school and expect everything to be great. When school funds are based on property taxes, urban schools are at an enormous disadvantage. Children of poor households also face a number of problems and challenges that children from other income levels do not have to face. Research has shown that schools that mix students of different income levels are better for everyone. Our heavily segregated system is not working. Now that the middle class is moving back into many cities, urban middle class parents need to support their local public schools.

@Amanda: Not enough investment. Not enough desire for reform. A belief that these schools are unchangeable and pretty much deserve to fail. A total disrespect for teachers from every aspect of society – combined with an attitude from parents that it is a school’s job – and the school’s alone – to teach their children. The fact that teachers are expected to be everything from a social worker, to a crowd control officer and administrate as well.

The feds and many state compensate those poorer schools for the discrepancy of funds. Unfortunilty in many cases it is the unions/teachers/bloated overhead that eats up that money as opposed to it funneling down to the kids, much like Obamas stimulus made unions and people in charge of said projects rich but very few actually projects got the funds needed to even start. It starts before the kids ever even make it into the school systems and no, earlier state or federal run programs aren’t the answer. Teaching parents how to actually be a parent as opposed to leaving kids playing video games and TV for babysitters is where it needs to start. But then again, who is going to tell a parent that they are doing a shitty job and setting their kid up to fail?

@Nolan: Trump supporters would ideally like to see all adult black people with a mop and bucket working for very low wages . Trump is a complete joke who was lucky enough to be born into a very wealthy family .﻿

@Cary: My only hesitation with Trump when addressing the black community, is saying he will make it safe again and fix it. He will also bring jobs back to them. First of people need incentive to want to establish businesses in the inner city. The first disincentive is the crime and the unpredictable nature of riots etc and how that impacts things like insurance. I’m all for tough enforcement but as we know there is a segment of black people who will impede any process towards improvement. Don’t get me wrong I’m all in for Trump, the single biggest thing blacks could benefit from is school choice.

@Kool Aid: What has Hillary promised black people? Not a damn thing. Her and her husband must bear some of the problems that has happened to the black race. Yet the bitch has promised nothing. Obama promised nothing and for eight years, he’s done nothing.﻿